Police fired tear gas to break up rallies as black-clad activists blocked roads and trashed shopping malls across Hong Kong’s New Territories on Sunday on the 24th straight weekend of anti-government protests.
Pro-democracy protesters vandalized a train station in the central new town of Sha Tin and smashed up a restaurant perceived as being pro-Beijing, overturning banqueting tables and smashing glass panels, two weeks before district council elections in the Chinese-ruled city.
Violence spilled out onto the streets of Tuen Mun outside the “V city” mall, with running battles between riot police and protesters.
Now TV showed pictures of a circular, red welt and bruise on the upper arm of one of its reporters who said she had been hit by a tear gas canister in Tsuen Wan, to the west of the New Territories, where police fired tear gas late into the evening to clear the streets.
The rail station was closed in Sha Tin, amid scuffles between police and protesters young and old, on a day of planned shopping mall protests throughout the territory. Shopping districts across the harbor on the main island were quiet.
“Radical protesters have been gathering in multiple locations across the territories,” police said in a statement.
